Trust me the shield makes a difference in later levels, most of the level 46 + fighters in our guild had to switch to 1h for the extra def against the final boss in the mini dragon KQ just so we would have enough people keeping the monster aggro away from the ranged and healers. Mini dragon in the kq uses fear so more than 1 tank is needed.

Remember the shield is usually about the same amount of defense as your CHEST PLATE. Thats ALOT of defense.

Shields though IMO are mainly just for PVE.
1 handed swords will be worthless against clerics and will do low damage to high armored characters like fighters.

I originally liked 2h Swords but now I'm probably gonna go with 1h sword and shield :3

Personally, I think axes are too slow. I'm still deciding between 1H and 2H swords, slightly leaning towards 1H as of now.

I'll add a bit more on 1h since i pvped sasuke (uses 2h sword) on the last day of cb2.

1h definitely beats 2h in pvp damage wise. I was out damaging sasuke by quite a bit even with the shield. There was only 1 level between us so i don't think that would make much difference.

Not sure how the damage would have been vs a 2h axe wielder but i was outdamaging him, attacking faster and blocking so even though tequila was there as well if we'd had equal potions and stones i would have most likely won.

I definitely think the dev's need to look at 2h swords and improve them.

I have to see this in action.
Judging from just an experiencial standpoint 1handed sword damage is already extremely poor. They are increasingly ineffective against clerics and warrirors due to thier high def.

Axes on the other hand while they are slower, have very high damage and crit rates. 1 skill power hit crit and can pretty much know almost all of the hp of mages and archers of similar levels.

There is NO DELAY between skills. Allowing skill spamming between the axe and the 1handed sword to come at the SAME speed. You'll attack the same speed while dealing more damage with higher chance to crit

im not much inti def so axe becouse it strong or 2h becouse it looks hawt

last time i had an axe but hearing somethings from higher lvls and my build im going 1hand sword and shield + they look cool +9

2-hander sword for me. It looks cool. The axe looks like some burden I just wanna drop onto the ground xS Until my budget is big enough to allow for a +9 shield, I'll stick to the 2-hander.

Axe will work great in PvP, maybe not so in PvE. Do you spam skills while you grind? =/ I don't, and it still sucks my SP bar dry pretty quickly.

2handers aren't nearly as good in pve incomparison to swords n boards. Low aim not good for tanking. But the damage is very sufficient. And well they help ALOT against high def monsters and bosses.